Medical Assistants Help Doctors Work on Ways to Serve Patients and Save their Bottom Line

We have said it many times before, due to the ever rising cost of running a medical office, or clinic and cutbacks and restrictions imposed by health insurance companies and HMOs doctors are facing unique challenges of  providing efficient patient care and keeping bills and medical office staff paid.

The rapidly changing landscape in medicine and healthcare, as well as the struggling economy and labor market makes it vital for doctors in a private or group practice to keep tabs on all business metrics and adjust their cost and procedures if necessary, such as:

• expand office hours
• cut back on medical office staff
• cross-train and retain employees
• increase flexibility/multitasking
• retain existing/obtain new patients
• carefully track expenses
• purchase discount/volume supplies
• switch to electronic prescriptions
• electronic medical records (EMR)
• schedule appointments efficiently
• recover past due accounts

Another way to run the medical office more cost efficiently is to retain experienced staff and replace nurses (RNs and LPNs) who are primarily trained in patient care and often are unfamiliar with the business and administrative aspects of a medical office,  with well trained medical assistants who can handle not only the clinical but also administrative tasks, such as book keeping, appointment scheduling, health insurance verification, specialist referrals and some basic medical transcription, data entry and medical coding and billing.

Most doctos appreciate the fact that a medical assistant who graduated from a formal medical assisting training program or holds a degree is trained and well prepared to handle both, clinical (back office) and administrative (front office) functions, so if a medical biller, or medical records secretary calls out sick, the doctor can slide the medical assistant into that position without having to hire temporary staff. Typically, everyone in the medical office has a specific function, but if there is a need, or they are not busy doing their primary job then they can do other things on the list that keeps the office running.

Read more:
Medical Practices Keep Eye on the Business Side - NYTimes.com